Roundup: Teens Promise Not to Have Sex, Except When They Do

by Robin Marty, RH Reality Check

February 1, 2010 - 9:05am (Print)

It's Monday morning and the kids are back at school. And what are they learning now?

If they're in an abstinence only ed class, probably not very much.

Why, yes, it IS time for an Abstinence Only Roundup!

First off, a reminder from the New York Times about what we already know: abstinence only education just doesn't work.

No doubt a number of factors contributed to the upticks, [in teen pregnancy] including, for example, declining contraceptive use by teenagers. But the [Guttmacher] institute also sees a link between the rise in the teenage pregnancy and abortion rates and the Bush administration’s reliance on abstinence-only sex education programs that bar teaching about contraception. This is not an unreasonable inference.

The study is timely. As part of the broader health care reform effort, abstinence-only advocates are trying hard to restore financing for the narrow, ineffective and fundamentally dishonest approach.

Seems pretty clear, right? So of course, the Times had to come up with an outside op ed to counter it. You know, because balance is way more important than facts.

The new numbers, declared the president of Planned Parenthood, make it “crystal clear that abstinence-only sex education for teenagers does not work.”

In reality, the numbers show no such thing. Abstinence financing increased under Bush, but the federal government has been funneling money to pro-chastity initiatives since early in Bill Clinton’s presidency. If you blame abstinence programs for a year’s worth of bad news, you’d also have to give them credit for more than a decade’s worth of progress.

More likely, neither blame nor credit is appropriate. The evidence suggests that many abstinence-only programs have little impact on teenage sexual behavior, just as their critics long insisted. But most sex education programs of any kind have an ambiguous effect, at best, on whether and how teens have sex. The abstinence-based courses that social conservatives champion produce unimpressive results — but so do the contraceptive-oriented programs that liberals tend to favor.

Got that? Abstinence only education may not work, but since you haven't proven to him that other sex-ed classes do, you should keep funding them anyway. The fatal flaw in his argument being that if there was less abstinence only ed during Clinton and the numbers were down, than an increase in it during Bush and the numbers rose, then yes, you pretty much did prove right there what's causing the problem.

Need a little more convincing that teaching about contraception is the best way to reduce teen pregnancy and STD infection rates? How about this: even the Mormons are doing it.

The irony behind a poll published Thursday in The Salt Lake Tribune is that while most Mormons oppose teaching about contraception in their schools, the population centers with the highest concentration of members of the LDS Church lead the nation in accessing emergency anti-pregnancy treatments. They also are among the leaders in STD rates.

That is why conservative Mormon Sen. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, is sponsoring a bill this session that would require school districts to teach students in their sex education classes about contraceptives.

"I was blown away when I learned of the infection rates (of sexually transmitted diseases)," Urquhart told me in a recent interview. "We have got to get a handle on this thing.

But if you really want to keep going with this abstinence only thing, you've got some really good ammunition to assist you in getting the message across these days -- Bristol Palin and the Candies Foundation.

Candies wants to help fight teen pregnancy, but not in any way that might actually, you know, work. Its whole strategy is to tell teens to wait. Wear sexy clothes, but don’t have sex. Just don’t have sex. Its page of “tips” are all about sex -- not safe sex, mind, you, but how most teens who end up pregnant hadn’t really considered the consequences of sex. So, you see, just don’t do it, and then you won’t have that problem.
Naturally, Bristol is the perfect spokesperson for this campaign. Because even though she had sex, and we all know it, there’s no law that says she can’t pretend she didn’t have sex and that her vows of abstinence won’t be true in the future.

But one thing that will always help keep a teen safe is to augment any type of sex ed, be it full educational or just of the abstinence variety, is to talk to your children. Advice columnist Carolyn Hax walks one parent through the process in her latest piece.

[E]xplain what it is about: making big decisions for the right reasons.

What society thinks isn't relevant. What her friends do isn't relevant. (Though both have the power to make her miserable, if she'll let them.) Whether she's ready to take responsibility for her sexual health is relevant. (Can she remember to take medication regularly, or use a barrier method correctly and/or in the heat of the moment?) Whether she's ready to raise a child, abort one or place one for adoption is relevant, because birth control isn't perfect. When you're doing things that will potentially create a life, your life has to be at a stage where you can handle that responsibility.

Mini Roundup: The Council of Catholic Advocates in Mexico argue that children raised by same sex couples cannot will be submitted to "psychological violence" and not be "fostered to their full potential," like they would be with no families at all, and in Nebraska, anti-abortion forces continue to rally for a ban on a procedure that hasn't been performed in the state in a year. And if all of that doesn't make you go "what?" then read a little about what doctors may be doing while you're out cold -- without your consent.

February 1, 2010

The Pro-Life Assault on Ron Paul Lew Rockwell

Sidewalk Counselors: The Front Lines of the Pro-Life Movement (Part One) Catholic Online

Debate in America: Extremes and excesses Seattle Post Intelligencer

Strategy Shifts on Global Health Wall Street Journal

The adoption option Washington Post

Detained Missionaries Call Incident a 'Misunderstanding' New York Times

January 31, 2010

Dangerous generalizations about pro-life protesters Washington Post

White House Aims to Broaden Approach to Global Health Wall Street Journal

Obama budget targets women amid complaints Kansas City Star

A Super Bowl ad we can do without Los Angeles Times